 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-09-20 17:39
First let me say that I don’t believe there is such a thing as one correct tongue position. Everything depends on a person’s physical make up. We all have different size body parts and that certainly includes the tongue. The one thing I think most people will agree is that a low tongue position in the back will most likely causes an unfocused and perhaps flat tone, especially in the throat tones. Though when the tongue is too high in front you are creating a small air passage and that can contribute to getting a forced, bright tone.
As a student I had trouble tonguing up to high G and Leon Russianoff told me it was probably because I was closing off the air passage when I went up high by raising my tongue too high in the front trying to voice those notes. Once I got the concept of keeping it lower in front the problem went away. Later Joe Allard tried to get me to keep my tongue high in front so I could tongue the reed tip to tip but he realized my tongue was to large and I was choking off the tone. At first I was very confused by the whole thing until I analyzed myself more and realized what was happening. Now I always think low in the back of my throat and keep my tongue low in the front and high in back, never the EE feeling like so many players do.
I having the back of the tongue up high in between or up near the upper molars. Then I like to angle the front of my tongue in an arch so that the front of my tongue touches my lower lip above my lower teeth. When I tongue I do use near the tip of my tongue and it goes in a slight upward angle to the reed instead of a straight stroke like Allard tried to get me to do. I use the back of my tongue and larynx to voice my high notes, never the front of my tongue. I’m not saying that’s best for everyone, but it works for me because I have a large tongue. That way too, I get a darker, fuller sound then when the front of my tongue is high in my mouth. One has to consider your physical attributes and experiment to find the best position. It also depends on the quality your looking for too, you may like a brighter or darker sound so go for it. The only correct way to do anything on the clarinet is what works best for you, the Russianoff way. ESP www.peabody.jhu.edu/457
Listen to a little Mozart
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Sylvain
Date: 2008-09-20 18:07
Although I am light years away from Ed or Tony's "clarinetistry" and musicianship. Larry Maxey, one of my teacher, gave me one of the most important lesson. It consisted of two sentences about voicing. I can't remember the exact words, but when I was struggling with legato and high notes, he was explaining to me that I had to learn to "feel" the embouchure and configuration of tongue/throat so that I could experiment with different configurations and find what worked best for me.
I still remember this lesson and stop myself once in a while to analyze what I did that made this not speak so well or squeak...
Thank you Ed for reminding us of this. I am off to practice some scale get the altissimo working
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2008-09-20 19:03
To Ed:
Thanks for an interesting post. I really found your discussion about the larynx to be fascinating. This is something that isn't discussed much--at least I have never heard it discussed. I studied with some very well-known clarinet teachers, but never heard any of them mention the larynx.
As a teacher in public schools for many years, I once had problems with my larynx (there are a number of problems one can have in that area, and I don't recall the exact diagnosis of mine). This is certainly a common problem for teachers, expecially vocal music teachers (I wonder how they do it). I went to an ear-nose-throat specialist, and we got the problem under control. I asked the doctor about clarinet playing. He didn't say not to do it, but he said it could put some strain on the larynx/vocal cords. Looking back, I wish that I had asked him to elaborate further, but I didn't.
I definitely think that the role of the larynx in clarinet tone production--even if its role is minor--is an area worthy of further research and discussion.
To Sylvain:
The mention of Larry Maxey brought a smile to my face. What a clarinet player, what a man, and what a teacher! I studied with him briefly during two summers at music camp when I was in high school, and I learned a great deal from him. He made some suggestions to help me improve my embouchure, and I followed his advice. I studied with many teachers after him, but none of them ever mentioned my embouchure, so Maxey must have been right on the mark. He also helped fix my tonguing, and thanks to him, I learned to tongue lightly and quickly.
I haven't seen Larry Maxey in about 38 years, and I hope he's doing well. I emailed him several years ago, and we shared some memories. I will always be grateful to him for what I learned in about 10 lessons during two summers at music camp.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Sylvain
Date: 2008-09-20 19:59
clarinetguy:
I last heard from Dr. Maxey in January, he was well. He just retired from his faculty position at KU. email me privately if you want his contact info.
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: clarnibass
Date: 2008-09-20 21:13
>> Now I always think low in the back of my throat and keep
>> my tongue low in the front and high in back, never the EE
>> feeling like so many players do
Intersting, since I just said 'Eeeeeeeee' and low in the front and high in the back is exactly how the tongue was 
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2008-09-20 21:32
clarinetguy wrote:
>> I really found your discussion about the larynx to be fascinating. This is something that isn't discussed much--at least I have never heard it discussed. I studied with some very well-known clarinet teachers, but never heard any of them mention the larynx.
>> As a teacher in public schools for many years, I once had problems with my larynx (there are a number of problems one can have in that area, and I don't recall the exact diagnosis of mine). This is certainly a common problem for teachers, expecially vocal music teachers (I wonder how they do it). I went to an ear-nose-throat specialist, and we got the problem under control. I asked the doctor about clarinet playing. He didn't say not to do it, but he said it could put some strain on the larynx/vocal cords. Looking back, I wish that I had asked him to elaborate further, but I didn't.>>
>> I definitely think that the role of the larynx in clarinet tone production--even if its role is minor--is an area worthy of further research and discussion.>>
Ed mentioned the larynx just once, in passing. I think he meant, the back of the mouth cavity.
We have difficulty enough talking about what the tongue should do, when most of us have no idea what our tongue is doing at any given moment.
PLEASE don't let's start involving ANOTHER bit of ourselves that no-one has any experience of. It's bad enough people talking about their problems with their throat.
Tony
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: jeeves
Date: 2008-09-20 21:55
How is the larynx involved in clarinet playing? I didn't know it was used at all except for maybe special effects.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2008-09-20 22:55
Ed, this might be a totally off topic, you say you have a large tongue. I have a large tongue also, and my Dr. told me it's the reason for my sleep apnea. I was curious if you have sleep apnea, or how many others on this list have this condition. Tom P
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-09-21 05:03
Hi Tom, no I don't have sleep apnea so it must not effect my breathing at night.
In response to clarinibass, I guess we all react differently. When I say the Eeeee vowel my tongue pulls back and goes high mid way back and my throat gets very tight and constricted. I guess we're all built differently, as I was pointing out in my post. It's interesting that you get the opposite effect. I guess that was my point.
As far as the Larynx goes in response to Jeeves, it might not be the same for everyone but when I vocalize, as I do when I voice the clarinet, something in the back of my throat moves higher the higher I go. I apologize if it's the wrong body part but when I look at a picture of the throat that's what it appears to be to me. Perhaps it doesn't happen to everyone. As I stated, everyone is different. ESP
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Liquorice
Date: 2008-09-21 06:29
I once played the clarinet with an endoscope inside my mouth for a TV documentary about the inside of wind players' mouths. They put the camera inside my mouth from the side, and also in through my nose to get a different angle. It was interesting to see the tongue movements, but what really suprised the ear-nose-throat specialist was that I made use of my epiglottis. Perhaps this is what Ed is talking about. In any case, it's something I've never been concious of, so perhaps Tony is right to say that it's best left alone.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: clarnibass
Date: 2008-09-21 08:40
>> I guess we all react differently. When I say the Eeeee vowel
>> my tongue pulls back and goes high mid way back and my
>> throat gets very tight and constricted. I guess we're all built
>> differently, as I was pointing out in my post. It's interesting
>> that you get the opposite effect. I guess that was my point.
That's interesting and made me want to check it a little, and seems that what is happening for me is exactly the opposite of what is happening for you. I just now played naturally, moved the clarinet away, and tried to keep my tongue exactly the same, which I think I managed to do. I found that it is relatively in the back of the mouth, more than its natural position (when I'm not playing). The back of the tongue is high (a little higher than its natural position) and then it is a (fast) diagonal to the end where it is low.
Then I tried different tongue positions on purpose. Putting the tongue even further back in my mouth completely blocked and was hard to play. Putting it more in the front made it harder to control the note (i.e. keep it steady) and also harder to control intonation. When I say 'Eeee' my tongue is more in the front of my mouth, more than when I naturally play, and it's not comfortable to play this way.
I don't remember that any of my teachers ever used vowls to explain tongue position so I never thought of it that way until now when I checked (except one teacher in uni who mentioned it with staccato, but by that time I was ignoring the school and doing whatever I wanted ).
Interesting about the vowls though, is different accents. 'Eeee' is pronounced like 'Bee' (the note or the animal, you choose ). I heard a young girl from England play a note, and when she was asked what note it was, she replied "a Bay"
Nitai
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-09-21 13:51
I also totally agree with what Tony said. I don’t think most players should over analyze how they’re doing things if they don’t have a problem. I was just pointing out what I think happens when I play because I thought some people might be interested. I get a lot of questions in my e-mail about these kinds of things so I decided to go public and “confess”. I like to know what other successful players do, you’re never to old, or to good to learn something new even if you don’t think you have a problem. I’m not suggesting that anyone else necessarily do the same thing as I do, I know it won’t work for everyone, we’re all different. I’ve just discovered in the years I’ve been teaching that you have to help a student find what works best for them. If a student is not having a problem with something you should not change them for the sake of change just because they do it differently then you. Nor should you change simply because someone else does it differently. That doesn’t mean you should never try something new to see if it improves your playing. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” Just take my post for what it’s worth, my opinion. ESP
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: mrn
Date: 2008-09-21 17:02
Ed wrote:
<<Nor should you change simply because someone else does it differently. That doesn’t mean you should never try something new to see if it improves your playing. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” Just take my post for what it’s worth, my opinion.>>
Well, your opinion's worth a lot in my book! Thanks for sharing it with us (and especially for sharing how you got there, since while we shouldn't all necessarily do things the same way, we all need guidance in the process of figuring out what to do).
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: mrn
Date: 2008-09-21 17:10
Nitai wrote:
<<Interesting about the vowls though, is different accents. 'Eeee' is pronounced like 'Bee' (the note or the animal, you choose ). I heard a young girl from England play a note, and when she was asked what note it was, she replied "a Bay" >>
That's a really good point. There is definitely a difference in tongue position based on accent. We Americans tend to pronounce our vowels further back in the mouth than would be the case in RP (BBC Standard English) pronunciation (and of course there are many different American accents as well as many different British accents). You can actually observe the effects of this difference on a spectrogram. In some Asian languages, like Mandarin Chinese, "ee" is pronounced with the tongue so close to the front palate that it sounds like "yee."
This is yet another reason why you can't simply give someone a vowel sound to replicate. It's not just physiology, but also phonology that matters.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-09-21 22:38
Good feedback, Thank you! I totally agree that Natie makes an excellent point about how different cultures pronounce the same vowel differently. I know it’s common for some American teachers to use certain vowel sounds to illustrate the point they are trying to make about tongue, throat oral cavity position or whatever. I know that's true because I've read it and heard it often. Obviously we have to consider the country the person is from if we are going to use that as an illustration. Saying we shouldn't use vowels for that purpose won't prevent teachers from using them if they were taught that way themselves, especially if they are successful in their studio with that approach. ESP www.peabody.jhu.edu/457 Listen to a little Mozart
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2008-09-22 16:10
Larry Guy has an interesting article on tongue position in the current issue of The Clarinet magazine. He's a terrific player with a really beautiful sound, so his ideas are worth trying.
Ken Shaw
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2008-09-22 21:09
Hi Ken,
You wrote:
>> Larry Guy has an interesting article on tongue position in the current issue of The Clarinet magazine. He's a terrific player with a really beautiful sound, so his ideas are worth trying. >>
First of all, let me say that I don't know Larry Guy's playing, nor what he wrote in The Clarinet magazine.
But, your recommendation of his ideas gives me an opportunity to say something.
Before I do so: you have many times said to me here that you would be very interested in my response to a question of yours. And always, I have replied. Sometimes your requests have been for information, sometimes for opinions.
As you know, I'm not particularly interested in 'opinions'; I'm even not particularly interested in MY opinions -- because I know that my likes and dislikes come from very murky sources, and may even be to do with what I encountered at a very early age, when I had no choice in the matter.
But I very much am interested in arguments, for or against a particular stance. Those arguments might be for or against a particular way of going about playing music: that would cover Kell's way of dealing with the Stravinsky Three pieces -- or they might be for or against a particular interpretation of a text: that would cover the dispute about the Poulenc Sonata 'wrong notes'.
The arguments that MOST engage me, though, are the arguments about what we can say about the fundamentals of clarinet playing. And notice: ARGUMENTS ABOUT WHAT WE CAN SAY about the fundamentals of clarinet playing.
What do I mean by 'ARGUMENTS ABOUT WHAT WE CAN SAY' about the fundamentals of clarinet playing, that I have so definitely capitalised?
I mean, whatever we can say about the fundamentals of clarinet playing that makes LOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC SENSE.
Of course, you will know that I also understand that there are metaphorical ways of describing what we may best do as players; ways that may better help students than a direct description of the scientific facts. (Indeed, I once planned to write a book called 'Metaphors for Playing the Clarinet' -- and have even sketched here some of what I planned to write in that book.)
But I have come to think that we, as a community, have a very low standard of acceptance of what people say about these fundamentals. There are a few trivial examples; but the most outstanding one is the way in which the idea of 'support' is dealt with in the supposedly 'definitive' article by Arnold Jacobs, which you endorse.
OR DO YOU?
YOU NEVER SAY. And, that you and others like you never say, characterises the difference between our community and the scientific community; because in that community, it is precisely the WEIGHT OF JUDGEMENT, OVER TIME, about WHAT MAKES SENSE, that determines whether or not a particular article, or particular point of view, is taken seriously.
A very famous scientist called Linus Pauling, who had made incredible contributions to chemistry and biochemistry, in later life took up a crusade to convince everyone that vitamin C was a major contributor to health. His claims were investigated, of course; but it was very quickly decided that what he had to say wasn't borne out by the evidence.
So they were dismissed.
You say about Larry Guy:
>> He's a terrific player with a really beautiful sound, so his ideas are worth trying.>>
So, I agree with you -- they're worth trying. But Larry Guy, unlike Linus Pauling, isn't a theoretician. So what he has to say EVEN MORE needs to be measured up against what makes sense.
Did you do that?
>> He's a terrific player with a really beautiful sound, so his ideas are worth trying.>>
But, that's what you ALWAYS say, whether the ideas are ridiculous or not. You never have the courage to engage with whether the ideas MAKE SENSE to you.
So in the case of Arnold Jacobs, you imply that people should take seriously what, in the case of clarinet playing, is an incomprehensible load of waffle.
And worse, in doing so, you encourage people to think in a waffly way.
I HATE IT.
So, this is a challenge:
To use words that you've successfully used three or four times to me:
"I would be really interested to hear what you think about this."
Tony
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Phurster
Date: 2008-09-22 23:41
Hello All,
It seems to me there are two distinct parts to a workable tongue positon:
1. The placement of the tongue on the reed.
2. The shape the back of the tongue makes in order to optimise tone and intonation.
Here is a response (i made a while ago) to a statement made by "Tom" that deals with the second aspect. Some might find it worthwhile.
Tom:
"I do find I really have to concentrate on keeping oral cavity the same and stay really sensitive to the pressure, because if I don't that sound change will change and very noticeably. It won't be a bad sound, it might be a color that I could find useful for some piece of music."
You might be interested in looking at some of the recent research regarding the oral cavity. Specifically "Oral tract fluctuations in clarinet and saxophone performance: an acoustical analysis/by Peter G.Clinch" Monash University libruary www.lib.monash.edu.au
Peter was a former teacher of mine. An inspirational Saxophone player. His research (and other research) led him to notice the large amount of movement with the back of the tongue and within the oral cavity. He felt that each note had an optimum position.
Michael Webster in the Clarinet has listed a number of studies that describe tha pattern of this movement.
In the Clarinet Vollume 30 Number4 He lists a study by Raymond Wheeler he goes on to suumerise some of Wheelers findings.
These included:
"1. During performance...the throat opening near the uvela is quite narrow for the low register tones. The upper rear portion of the tongue is in a high position. as the scale ascends into the clarion and altissimo registers the upper rear portion of the the tongue moves gradually downward and forward....
5. There is only one positon the tongue can assume while sustaining a given tone and that must not be changed, although some teacher-performers profess that tone quality may be improved by adjusting the tongue's vowel or syalble shape for any tone....."
Michel Webster goes on to list as study by Dr,Richard Stasey, "a prominent Houston otolaryngologist" (not sure about the last term but my goodness it sounds impressive).
He finds that
"1. There is more throat activity in clarinetists than in other woodwind players..."
I hope you find this of interest. I found some of the ides in conflict to what I felt I was doing, after reading some books on brain function I have adopt the attitude of the Lion in Madagascar (sorry-two young children here) ie"never trust your instincts"
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: graham
Date: 2008-09-23 15:53
Something that interests me is, can we determine the toungue position simply by listening to the player? To take an example of a very individual kind of tone, that of Dieter Klocker (whom I much admire, though unfortunately only know his playing from recordings). Can we tell what his toungue position is like by listening to his sound, or is the range of variables simply too great to make that judgement?
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: dile
Date: 2008-09-24 23:37
Thanks a lot to masters Ed Palanker and Tony Pay and all posters here, since this thread is covering a main issue to 'internalize'. I was working at it by myself at a softer tonguing for clarion A and above, experimenting a reduction of the space in the oral cavity and a focused blowing, but, reading the references in this page, and trying to apply them, I have the impression to re-discover an adjusting to the tones their own voicing, as in singing. Being a complex process it should be tried tonguing in a relaxed frame of mind (and mouth), avoiding to accumulate that tension that makes you fall in repeated unsatisfactory emissions on the clarinet's difficult tones.
The reading of the article cited from Tony Pay can be particularly fruitful for the sly-at-work, because it confirms good practice from a sound experimental basis, pointing at the conditions imposed to human practice from the inherent properties of the instrument.
Obviously, it will be musicianship the capability to employ all this complexity into a performing gesture capable to be shared. Anyway, it's a consolation to remark that in this messy world clarinetists are still generous in giving proper advice.
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
